Having Trouble Sleeping? Read my 20 Powerful Tips to Ease Insomnia

Sleep is so important for every aspect of health and your ability to have fulfilling, enjoyable days. And in stressful, anxious or exhausting times it can be easy to go about our pre-bed routine on autopilot, but without stopping to acknowledge how we are feeling. Deep restful sleep relies partly on having a calm mind. If we are having uncomfortable feelings or stressful thoughts about unresolved issues these will become louder when it’s time to turn off the light, and can mean yet another night of restlessness, tossing and turning, laying awake for hours or disturbing dreams.

If insomnia for you is linked with anxiety or depression it will be helpful to create a new nurturing bedtime routine. Here are 20 tips to help you address these inner discomforts as part of your preparation for bed, so that you can really melt into the delicious sleep you deserve, and you do deserve delicious sleep!

1 Sit in Whole brain posture (cross your wrists and ankles) for 2 to 5 mins as part of your bedtime preparations if you can feel your brain is buzzing and still too active for sleep. This is a PSYCH-K technique to release stress and induce calm by bringing balance between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Watch your mind in this posture as the buzzy mind activity melts away.

2 Something on your mind? When your mind is buzzing over a decision to be made or after lots of activity at night, or perhaps you are upset and the situation is ongoing and as yet unresolved take steps to enable calm by writing down your worries – 10pm at night isn’t the best time to book holidays, do the ironing or have tough conversations with others! So just write it down, now is the time for sleep not problem solving, give yourself permission to switch off.

3 Change your beliefs about sleep – when we have struggled to sleep well for a long time we will have created stressful beliefs about our ability to sleep. These can be changed! Don’t accept poor sleep as your lot in life. Relax about it all – this will pass if you tell yourself it will and believe it’s possible.

4 Sit with the thoughts about poor sleep and ask them what they want you to know. Sleeplessness is a symptom and can be seen as a communication just like any other physical symptom, pain or life situation you’re not happy about. So sit in a quiet space, at a quiet time of day and just ask with an attitude of curiosity, patience and neutrality in your mind why you are not sleeping well and what this symptom wants you to know. Note down any words or images that come, they will be relevant.

5 Negative thoughts about ourselves, others or about situations create internal distress, raising our stress levels and stimulating stress hormones including cortisol – not conducive for 7 hours of great sleep! Just be aware of this connection, and know that it’s okay to have negative thoughts. Just by acknowledging that the thoughts are painful can be enough to bring acceptance, which is softer than anxiety.

6 Go to bed and get up at roughly the same time each day. We are routine creatures in many ways!

7 Go to sleep with your teddy bear. Cuddling a teddy releases the feel good hormone oxytocin helping us to feel calm, plus it will delight your inner child :)

8 If it’s pain or restless leg syndrome that’s keeping you up please reach out for help to address these issues as a priority. Pain is an alarm bell to your decision-making mind from your body. If you can perceive pain as a friend who cares about your well being, rather than an inconvenience to get rid of or to silence then the issue has a much better chance of being cleared up. It’s a much more empowered attitude to adopt, and with an open mind to natural healthcare solutions you’re really in a good position to transform your health, and relationship to your body and sleep.

9 Turn off any internet-based devices that are in the room. Electronic back-lit devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computers emit blue light which have been connected to a reduction in the natural sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, making us feel more awake! Not ideal when we have to get up for work at 6am the next day. At night use electronic readers or other devices that use red, yellow or orange light in the background that don’t disrupt your natural circadian rhythm.

10 Indulge in calming activities at bedtime – read a book, write in a gratitude journal, drink lavender or chamomile tea, do some gentle yoga poses. Keep action films, thriller/horror books or stimulating conversations for the day time or earlier in the evening.

11 Be mindful not to overeat at dinner or over indulge on takeaways, alcohol or desserts, indigestion doesn’t help good sleep! If the body has a heavy meal to digest during the night it will leave less capacity for good sleep and for all the necessary natural detoxing processes the body usually does at night.

12 Experiment with ditching sugar and caffeine entirely for a week or so and see how that changes your quality of sleep. I always sleep better and wake earlier easily, feeling refreshed when I don’t have sugar at all. It’s wonderful!

13 Meditate before bed - meditation helps people fall asleep twice as quickly it has been found, enhances rapid eye movement (REM) sleep states and helps us stay in deep sleep. I personally find meditation eases stress and is very calming, it helps me to center myself after the busyness of the day. When we can take the time to come to feel at ease in ourselves, about ourselves, it is much easier to relax deeply.

14 Treat yourself or your sleepless children to a pouch of Guatemalan worry dolls – as a child I would speak my worries to these tiny dolls and place them back in the bag and under my pillow. It is said that they help you resolve any troubles you might have by the morning.

15 Helpful sleep aiding supplements include B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), Nutricalm from Lily and Loaf, Ashwaganda, Magnesium, Valerian, Passionflower, lavender, CBD. See what you are drawn to, trust your intuition. I am available to help you find the right supplement for you using kinesiology muscle testing.

16 Get up in the night - if you have been laying awake in the dark with worries or frustrations for some time get up and do some yoga stretches, note down the worries, play a guided meditation, maybe have a calming tea, then go back to bed.

17 Surrender to sleeplessness – when we are frustrated by our wakefulness in the night it can be very powerful to focus on accepting, on surrendering to our wakefulness and not ‘try’ anything, and allow your mind to wander. For me this has helped to create such a softening in the body and acceptance in the mind that sleep follows within 30 mins or so.

18 Avoid daytime naps or pre-bed snoozing on the sofa – this can interrupt your ability to nod off when you do reach your bed. What can you change about your evening routine to effectively avoid the sofa snooze?

19 Activity during the day helps us switch off at night – getting your body moving in some way, whether it’s your commute to work, cleaning the house or going out for a walk is all beneficial, particularly exposure to daylight. When we have been inactive for a significant portion of the day it can lead to lethargy, and create restlessness at night. After the lockdowns I had to consciously push myself to go out regularly because I had got used to staying in the house.

20 Sleep in the dark – the pineal gland in the brain can only truly rest in complete darkness. This gland produces melatonin – a hormone that tells the body it’s time to sleep.

So if you can focus on creating the right conditions to feel calm and sleepy at bedtime that will be immensely helpful in gaining a good night’s sleep.

I can help you change your beliefs about sleep with PSYCH-K or Kinesiology, and discover the communications from your body about the sleep issues, and resolve them and any issues relating to pain. I’m available for 60-minute or 90-minute in-person or online sessions, so get in touch if you would like some support.